We recently caught up with Dr. Medvec, and here's what she had to
say about women and power:

First of all, what exactly does the Center for Executive
Women do?
We've been in existence for 10 years now. We help women move
ahead and into board of director positions for Fortune 1000
companies. We have educational programs to help them leverage
their skills and navigate political office environments. We also
sponsor a lot of research. We have a database and provide that
information free of charge to search firms.

We started when four faculty members, including a male CEO,
Walter Scott [formerly of IDS Financial Services], saw how
the world was suffering for lack of female leaders.

How do you work with women and prepare
them?We really highlight the need
to ask and negotiate for yourself. There's some interesting
research that just came out of Virginia Tech explaining
that women are far less likely to speak up during a meeting. So
we talk about how to make yourself effective in meetings and
interactions. It's not how smart you are, it's how you get stuff
done in groups, how you lead. All of those skills are critically
important when it comes to movement from the middle to the very
top: how to influence change, deal with difficult
audiences.

What have you found through all of your
research? There are lots of women in the beginning
of the pipeline, in the middle, but not at the top. There are a
lot of things that contribute to the situation. If you look at
the vast amount of research:

1. Women don't ask. They don't negotiate for themselves.
Women don't ask for promotions and visible assignments. And not
only are women not going to get them, but sometimes women are
perceived as not wanting [these assignments]. They are not
thought of for those opportunities.

2. And then there's the issue of risk-taking. One thing
that we found is that women aren't taking P&L (profit &
loss) roles, which reduces women's abilities to then move into
more senior roles. Most director appointments come to those who
have experience running a unit. Women are very comfortable
working in functional roles, and they move up within that area.
To take on a P&L role requires a bit of risk-taking. One of
the reasons why women are occupying very few board seats is
because they don't have P&L roles.

How is the structure of the workplace
changing?
We're in a global workplace. We're more connected, there's more
distant officing, and I'm not sure that advantages women. If
women have a stronger relationship piece, that's dampened in the
virtual world.

Where are we at today?Are we progressing? Stagnating?
I don't think we're stagnating. The numbers look more like we're
stagnating than is the reality. Women are now on 14 percent of
boards versus 12 percent a decade ago. That may not appear
statistically significant, but before, the same women were on all
those boards. Today it's a diverse group, especially since now
there's a restriction on the number of boards people can serve
on.

The university system is a lot more egalitarian and
doesn't necessarily prepare us for the "real world." Would you
agree?
Not quite. The university system and "real world" for entry-level
employees are actually fairly similar. The discrepancy is between
entry-level jobs, mid-level jobs and those at the top. When
you're young, you don't have to negotiate for yourself. The
system takes care of you. When you move up, it's much more
important to negotiate for yourself.

Should we be teaching that stuff in schools across
America? Should it be required course material in
universities? We absolutely should be teaching
that stuff. People develop habits over time. These topics need to
be taught and reinforced at younger ages.